Greek election - January 25th 2015

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

Would a Syriza-Potami-Papandreou (should Papandreou get over 3%) be a realistic coalition, or would Papandreou refuse to join  such a constellation.

Also around what percentage would the 50 seat bonus give Syriza a majority? 

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

Well that turned out to be anticlimactic... I had expected Papandreou to give us something with a bit of substance at least. 

"A Movement which will work in the next parliament to secure all of the necessary preconditions for a safe and final exit from the crisis."

I love a political party that tells us they will solve a problem with-out telling us how they plan solve it.
The above statement could in practice mean almost anything, and since the party won't get a platform until after the elections it would seem they will fight the campaign on equally empty and meaningless rhetoric and talking points. If they actually manage to beat the 3% threshold I expect their parliamentary group to break down at the first tough vote.     

I give Papandreou an F for a jokingly bad attemt to create a new party. Someone should ask him why, since he claims to know the necessary preconditions for a safe and final exit from the greek crisis, he didn't just solved the problem when he was Prime Minister. 

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

Tsirapas now rules out cooperating with both Pasok, Potami and MDS and says he prefer to rely on support from KKE if Syriza doesn't get a majority.

LOL, has he checked that with KKE?

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

I generally believe that KKE are more genuine in their very old stance to never work with the bourgeois traitors in SYRIZA, than SYRIZA is genuine in their very recent stance to not work with To Potami. The idea that KKE would abstain to help SYRIZA survive requires that you think KKE actually wants to take responsibility in making the country operate... which is not how KKE works.

SYRIZA has an interest in getting a stable majority however, so that they are not throttled at their first unpopular decision, and a coalition is the only way to accomplish that if they don't crawl above 150 when everything is said and counted. 

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

Tsipras has promised not to enter coalition with others than KKE. If he breaks that promise he risks defections from his left wing (which will be bigger than any potential coalition partner), so it wont be worth it.

If KKE says no, and the only way to obtain a majority is through To Potami or ANEL, he will break the promise. I'm sure a SYRIZA minority government would be fine for a few months, but what happens once they have to push their first controversial vote through parliament, or if a few MPs desert? If Tsipras wants to survive as PM, and actually accomplish something of value, he needs a coalition partner, and KKE isn't it. It is just a simple reality, and an election promise can't change that.  

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

Tsipras has promised not to enter coalition with others than KKE. If he breaks that promise he risks defections from his left wing (which will be bigger than any potential coalition partner), so it wont be worth it.

If KKE says no, and the only way to obtain a majority is through To Potami or ANEL, he will break the promise.

Bam! Hate to say I told you so... (/Yes I am an insufferable person)
He didn't even wait for KKE to say no. ^^

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

Well, the problem I pointed out still exists. We do not know exactly how many of the new MPs that are Left Platform, but it is about 25% of the party and they will be alienated from the start. This is going to be a trainwreck.

Also, you obviously love to say "I told you so" Don't be a hypocrite.

I always assumed Syriza would be pragmatic when it came to coalition partner if they really needed a lot of seats (although I thought they would try Potami first), but not in a 148-149 scenario. This seems like an unnecessary gamble with possibly 30-40 left wingers among the MPs.

I also think Potami would have been a better choice as they are more close on matters not relating to the troika, but who still isn't tainted by the unpopularity of the current government. Syriza and Anel will obviously run into trouble agreeing on policy quite fast.

Still, I would expect Tsipras to have enough political savvy to know if this would cause mass defections from his caucus, so I don't think, initially at least, that that part will turn out to be a problem. Let's not forget that he is one of few leaders who managed to keep all his MPs through the last parliament.

(And yes, I do love it. )    

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

Tsipras will break the tradition by not being sworn in by the head of Greece’s orthodox church, Archbishop Ieronymos.

Pissing off ANEL before he even gets started?

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

Hard to see these guys just bow their heads and adapt to a Syriza-Anel alliance. They got 30% at the founding congress in Syriza.

We should not forget the possibility that it'll be ANEL, and not the SYRIZA left-wing that gets the short stick in this agreement. I think it's much more possible that Syriza runs over ANEL with left-wing policies, that will cause ANEL to rebel, than it is that they take a huge leap to the centre thereby annihilating their own caucus.

I have so far never heard of a coalition government where the dominant party didn't get to decide 90-95% of the policies leaving just crumbs to their partners, so I don't see why SYRIZA would actually give ANEL any meaningful influence on the new governments policy.